Frank Robinson, Baseball Lifer And Orioles Legend, Has Died

Credit: Keith Allison/Creative Commons via Flickr
Frank Robinson waves to Orioles fans during an appearance at an Orioles-Red Sox game in 2012.

Credit: Associated Press
President George W. Bush awarded Robinson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007.

Credit: Keith Allison/Creative Commons via Flickr
Frank Robinson was one of a number of former Orioles at the team's 60th anniversary celebration in 2014.

Credit: Baltimore Orioles
Frank Robinson and Brooks Robinson

Frank Robinson, the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame slugger and baseball lifer who played a key role in the team's first World Series championship, died Thursday after a long battle with cancer. He was 83.

A right fielder, Robinson played for five teams in his 21-season career and remains the only player to be named the most valuable player in both leagues. A Triple Crown winner, he was a member of two World Series champion Orioles squads. He hit 586 career home runs, 179 of them as an Oriole.

Robinson passed away in his Los Angeles home surrounded by his wife Barbara, daughter Nichelle and other family and friends. Brooks Robinson spoke to him a few days before his death.

"He just was wonderful teammate and put us over the hump," the Hall of Fame third baseman said of his teammate. "We'd been close for a couple of years but had never been able to win."

Robinson remains the only person in the history of the Orioles to serve as a player, coach, manager and front office executive, and the Angelos family remembered his accomplishments in a statement Thursday.

"Frank Robinson was not only one of the greatest players in Orioles history, but was also one of the premier players in the history of baseball," the statement read. "Frank’s contributions to the Orioles and his work as an ambassador for Major League Baseball will never be forgotten. This is a difficult day for our entire organization and for our many fans."

"Frank wasn’t just an all-time great Oriole but one of the greatest ball players in history," Ripken said. "He was a legendary figure and a trailblazer. He will be missed by all of us Orioles fans but he certainly will never be forgotten.”

At Camden Yards, the team placed flowers and a wreath at Robinson's statue, and visitors streamed by until 11 p.m. Thursday. Fans were still dropping by on Friday to pay their respects.

A first-ballot entry into Cooperstown, Robinson was also the first black manager in baseball, becoming player-manager of the Cleveland Indians in 1975 and staying on as manager a year after he hung up his cleats in 1977. Robinson's No. 20 was the first to be retired by the Orioles, and was also retired by the Indians and the Cincinnati Reds, with whom he debuted. He is one of just two players, the other being Nolan Ryan, to have their number retired by three different clubs.

"Frank Robinson's résumé in our game is without parallel, a trailblazer in every sense, whose impact spanned generations," Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. "We are deeply saddened by this loss of our friend, colleague and legend, who worked in our game for more than 60 years."

Robinson, who once played against Jackie Robinson, himself became a role model for black baseball players who followed.

"I was saddened to hear that Frank Robinson passed away today," Orioles Hall of Famer Eddie Murray said. "He was a great player. As an African American youth, I looked up to Frank and Jackie Robinson. My thoughts are with the Robinson family."

"This is where it all happened for me, here in Baltimore," Frank Robinson told Brett Hollander and Keith Mills in 2012:

Robinson "played the game tough, hard but fair," tweeted former teammate Jim Palmer. "Made all of us better players, and winners."

Another sad day in Birdland with the passing of Frank Robinson. Played the game tough, hard but fair. Made all of us better players, and https://t.co/CZJL5aUcD7 condolences to his family. RIP#20 @masnOrioles

Robinson was born Aug. 31, 1935 in Beaumont, Texas. After parents Ruth and Frank Sr. separated, a young Robinson followed his mother to Oakland. He played baseball and basketball at McClymonds High School and, after graduation, signed with the Reds organization in 1953 for a $3,500 signing bonus. Only several years removed from Jackie Robinson's major league debut, Robinson was the target of ugly racist taunts and wasn't able to eat with or room with his white teammates as he was coming up through the minors.

Robinson came to Baltimore in one of baseball's most lopsided trades. The Cincinnati Reds traded Robinson before the 1966 season for pitchers Milt Pappas and Jack Baldschun and outfielder Dick Simpson. Reds owner Bill DeWitt defended the trade by calling Robinson "not a young 30."

Brooks Robinson said he and his teammates had heard a lot about his exploits in the National League. On Thursday, he put his old friend in the same class as Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Mickey Mantle.

"Frank proved even more amazing than we thought he was," he said. "He was the best player on the team."

The following season, Robinson won the Triple Crown. He hit 49 home runs, one of which famously left Memorial Stadium. Until the Orioles left for Camden Yards, a flag labeled "HERE" was flown where the ball landed 541 feet away.

Pitcher Luis Tiant had thrown three straight shutouts. The first pitch was a fastball, Robinson recalled in 2012.

"After that at bat, he walked me the next three times," he said.

Keith Mills remembers Frank Robinson and what he meant to the Orioles and to baseball:

"No one person wins championships," Robinson said in 2014. However, he said, he felt he could put the Orioles over the top, and viewed the trade as a turning point in his career. That fall, the Orioles entered the 1966 World Series as underdogs against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

"The headlines in the Los Angeles papers and around the country said we didn't belong on the field with the mighty Dodgers and there's no way we had a chance to win," Robinson said. "The scouting report was read to us in the clubhouse the day before the game, and after that, I told our team that we could score runs off of their pitchers, and our pitchers could shut their offense down, and if we played the defense we were capable of playing and had played all year long, that we had a real good chance of winning the series."

The Orioles swept the Dodgers, and Frank Robinson was named the the most valuable player after the Orioles' first World Series championship victory.

"It's not to say that we wouldn't have won it without him," teammate Boog Powell said in 2007. "But as it turned out, I was sure glad to have him."

The Orioles later won three consecutive pennants between 1969 and 1971, and beat DeWitt's Reds in the 1970 World Series.

Robinson was as aggressive on the base paths as he was in the outfield. As a hitter, Robinson frequently crowded the plate.

“Pitchers did me a favor when they knocked me down,” he told the National Baseball Hall of Fame. “It made me more determined. I wouldn’t let that pitcher get me out. They say you can’t hit if you’re on your back, but I didn’t hit on my back. I got up.”

He quickly established a reputation, slugging 38 home runs as a 20-year-old in his 1956 rookie campaign, winning National League rookie of the year honors for his season with the Reds.

Robinson played the game with grace, yet was known as fierce competitor who combined hard work with natural talent. He crowded the plate, yielding to no pitcher, and didn’t seem to care about being brushed back or getting hit by a pitch 198 times.

“Pitchers did me a favor when they knocked me down,” Robinson said. “It made me more determined. I wouldn’t let that pitcher get me out.”

Earl Weaver noticed, writing in his 1982 autobiography that "nobody had more guts than Frank." Opposing pitchers noticed.

“Frank Robinson might have been the best I ever saw at turning his anger into runs. He challenged you physically as soon as he stepped into the batter’s box, with half his body hanging over the plate,” Hall ace Bob Gibson once wrote.

“As a rule, I’m reluctant to express admiration for hitters, but I make an exception for Frank Robinson,” Gibson wrote.

Robinson carried a similar philosophy as a baserunner, unapologetically sliding spikes high whenever necessary.

“The baselines belong to the runner, and whenever I was running the bases, I always slid hard,” Robinson declared.

Frank Robinson came to Baltimore at a tumultuous time. The Baltimore Sun reported in 2016 that Robinson needed the owner's help in finding somewhere to live before the 1966 season. Baltimore had a poor civil rights record. Some neighborhoods remained mostly white, and even nursing homes discriminated against people of color. Ultimately, the team and owner Jerry Hoffberger had to help Robinson find a place to live, ultimately settling on a home in Ashburton.

In the locker room, Robinson faced none of that tension.

"It was like a family," he said in 2012. "Everybody pulled for each other, rooted for each other."

A no-nonsense guy, Robinson also had a sharp wit. That served him well in Baltimore where, in addition to being a star right fielder, he was the judge for the team’s Kangaroo Court, assessing playful fines for missing signs, uniform mishaps and other things he deemed as infractions.

"I got fined for hobnobbing with another player one time, but we got fined for all kinds of different things," Brooks Robinson said.

At the time, the Orioles had a batboy named Jay Mazzone, whose hands were amputated when he was 2 after a burning accident. Mazzone capably did his job for years with metal hooks and became good friends with Robinson.

Some players, though, initially weren’t sure how to treat the teen.

“Frank Robinson broke the ice,” Mazzone said. “He was running his Kangaroo Court and calling a vote among the players, whether to fine somebody or not.”

“It was either thumbs up or thumbs down,” he recalled. “After the vote, he said, ‘Jay, you’re fined for not voting.’ Everybody laughed. After that, I was treated just like everybody else.”

All told, Robinson was an All-Star in five of his six seasons with Baltimore, reaching the World Series four times and batting .300 with 179 home runs. Robinson was traded to the Dodgers before the 1972 season. He played for the California Angels in 1973 and was dealt to Cleveland late in the 1974 season.

Robinson spent five seasons managing a Puerto Rico winter league team, hoping to angle for a managing job back on the mainland. After his 1974 season in Cleveland, the Indians named him player-manager, offering him a one year contract. The announcement was met with a crowded news conference and a telegram from President Gerald Ford, The New York Times reported at the time.

“The only reason I'm the first black manager is that I was born black,” he said calmly. “That's the color I am. I'm not a superman, I'm not a miracle worker. Your ballplayers determine how good a team you have. I might influence the ballplayers to some extent, but if we have a good team, they deserve the credit. If a ball club fails, I think the manager should be held responsible. I want to be judged by the play on the field.”

His managing career took him from Cleveland to San Francisco and then, unexpectedly, back to Baltimore. He replaced Cal Ripken Sr. after the team's 0-6 start, then remained on through 1991. He was named the American League manager of the year in 1989 for leading the "Why Not?" squad following a disastrous 1988 season. The team didn't start 1989 playing good baseball, he conceded.

"But then all of a sudden, everybody was kind of lumped together, and we caught fire," Robinson said.

He subsequently moved back into the front office as assistant general manager until he was let go in 1995.

"Ever since I first came here, I've been an Oriole and I always will be," Robinson told The Baltimore Sun at the time. "I've enjoyed my relationship with this organization, and with the city and the fans. It's like home to me. I just have a special feeling about the people here."

Robinson was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1982, alongside Hank Aaron.

Frank Robinson and I were more than baseball buddies. We were friends.Frank was a hard nosed baseball player who did things on the field that people said could never be done.I’m so glad I had the chance to know him all of those years. Baseball will miss a tremendous human being.

After a stint as baseball's chief disciplinarian, the skipper's role again called his name, again in strange circumstances. The MLB-owned Montreal Expos needed a manager in 2002, and Robinson was their man, leading the Expos to a surprisingly competitive season. He followed the team to Washington, where Robinson managed his final game in 2006.

Robinson returned to the league office the next year, serving as an adviser than as a special assistant to then-Commissioner Bud Selig, rising to become senior vice president for major league operations. From 2012 to 2015, he was executive vice president of baseball development. He left that position in 2015 and was named senior adviser to Manfred and honorary American League president.

A 14-time All-Star, he is in the Orioles, Reds and Indians hall of fame, and all three teams have statues of Robinson at their home stadiums. He is also in the Washington Nationals Ring of Honor. In 2005, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that contributions be made in his memory to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee or the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington.

A sad and heartbreaking news one of my heroes passing Frank Robinson the first African-American manager in Major League Baseball and the only player to win MVP in both leagues a true beloved Oriole and legend #HOF20#ripfrankrobinsonpic.twitter.com/ivI2HtwGEf

We lost two great Americans today – Frank Robinson and John Dingell – citizens who inspired me and so many others by leading on the civil rights issues of our time, opening doors to others, and leaving it all on the field.